[Dialogue] The Da Vinci Senator

Mon Jun 19 12:49:44 EDT 2006

AlterNet

The Da Vinci Senator

By Bob Geiger, AlterNet
Posted on June 19, 2006, Printed on June 19, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/37668/

The United States Senate is often called "the greatest deliberative body in
the world," which usually raises the bar on the tenor and intellectual
content of speeches given on the floor, if not for the official record.

Not so for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who took to the Senate floor last
week to deliver a strident push for the bigoted "Marriage Protection
Amendment." Alongside the typical massive distortions of the issue was an
argument that was based almost solely on the opinion of a little-known
conservative think tank affiliated with the Roman Catholic organization Opus
Dei <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei> .

"The problem we have in front of us is the institution of marriage has been
weakened, and the effort to redefine it on this vast social experiment that
we have going on, redefining marriage differently than it has ever been
defined before," the Kansas senator grimly intoned last week. "This effort
of this vast social experiment, the early data that we see from other
places, harms the institution of the family, the raising of the next
generation. And it is harmful to the future of the republic."

Brownback then went on to give figures for how various states have shown
their hatred of gay people with their own prohibitions on same-sex marriage
and used that as his rationale for a similar amendment to the U.S.
Constitution.

But Brownback really hit his stride when he described a paper called "Ten
Principles on Marriage and the <http://www.princetonprinciples.org/>  Public
Good," published by a fairly new and extremely conservative group at
Princeton University. According to Brownback, the paper is an "important
statement of principles from top American scholars [to] be considered
carefully by my colleagues." He then added that the sentiments expressed in
the nonscientific treatise were so vital to our national dialog that they
should ". help guide our debate on this issue."

The paper, sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute <http://www.winst.org/>
at Princeton, makes a case for banning same-sex marriage altogether. What's
extraordinary is the idea of a United States senator attempting to sway
opinion on an amendment that would have altered our Constitution (had it not
been defeated last Wednesday) by using a paper from an organization linked
to Opus Dei, a strict religious group that some former members have
described as a cult.

Brownback spent a good part of his lengthy Senate speech last week citing
the study and attributing it to "this Princeton group of scholars," while
never mentioning that all of the findings were based on the
ultraconservative Witherspoon Institute bolstered by the involvement --
directly or indirectly -- of a nonprofit, tax-exempt religious organization
in Opus Dei.

So what exactly is the Witherspoon Institute, whose paper formed the
foundation of Brownback's anti-gay argument?

The institute, which has only been around since 2003, has close ties to Tony
Perkins and the Family Research Council <http://www.frc.org/> , but is also
tightly aligned with Opus Dei. Indeed, Luis Tellez, the president
<http://www.winst.org/officers.html>  of the Witherspoon Institute is also
the director and lead cleric of Opus Dei in Princeton.

Since its founding in 1928, Opus Dei has been known for its traditionalist
values and right-wing political stances. And critics in academia -- which
include former members who sometimes go through "deprogramming" upon exiting
Opus Dei -- charge that organizations like the Witherspoon Institute are
just veiled attempts by Opus Dei to spread its influence in top-tier
academic circles.

So why then, is a U.S. senator offering to Congress "research" linked to
Opus Dei on something as vital as amending the Constitution? It turns out
that Brownback, who was formerly an evangelical Protestant, converted to
Catholicism by
<http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8183&abbr=cs_>  way of
Opus Dei in 2002 and was sponsored in that conversion by Sen. Rick Santorum,
R-Penn., a vocal Opus Dei advocate.

Tellez, the leader of Opus Dei in Princeton, is a "numerary," considered the
most conservative of the sect's members -- they are unmarried, celibate,
devote every aspect of their lives to their spiritual beliefs and turn over
their salaries from secular jobs to Opus Dei.

Again, it bears repeating that Tellez is also the head of the Witherspoon
Institute, the group Brownback cited at great length as his primary argument
against gay marriage.

And remember, it is Brownback, as an Opus Dei convert, who also leads the
charge on Capitol Hill against abortion and stem cell research and who,
along with Santorum, is seen by the Religious Right as a point man on
"culture war" issues.

The other central figure in the Witherspoon orbit is Dr. Robert George, a
Princeton professor and a board member in the institute who, not
coincidentally, helped
<http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/05/04/news/15528.shtml>
draft the federal gay-marriage ban that was just defeated in the Senate.
George chaired a meeting of religious leaders in late 2005 that included Dr.
James Dobson and other members of the extreme Religious Right. In fact, in
addition to his pivotal role in the Witherspoon Institute, George is also a
board member <http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA06C02#WA06C02>  at Perkins'
Family Research Council, a group known for its bigoted positions on the gay
community.

And, via Brownback, all of this is ultimately finding its way into the halls
of Congress.

While it may not be technically illegal for Brownback to be so clearly
mixing hard-right religious ideology -- and faux-academic papers promoted by
religious organizations like Opus Dei -- with debate on the Senate floor, it
should certainly raise some eyebrows. In a country where strict separation
of church and state is mandated, it seems Brownback is freely blending the
two, attempting to use religious dogma to influence public policy -- all the
while not disclosing to his Senate colleagues the background sources of the
research he is citing.

But this should not be surprising coming from Brownback.

In a January 2006 Rolling Stone article
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator> , "God's
Senator," Brownback is described as a religious zealot with a view for
America's future that could almost be described as medieval.

"In his dream, America, the one he believes both the Bible and the
Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will
be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric
of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be
privatized or simply done away with," reads the article. "There will be no
abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead
families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will
take care of all."

After all, it was Brownback, who came to Congress in 1994 and refused to
sign Newt Gingrich's "Contract
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_With_America>  With America" because
he felt it wasn't conservative enough. Even then, as a newcomer to the House
of Representatives, Brownback believed that the vast majority of what he saw
as Big Government should simply be eliminated, including the departments of
education, energy and commerce.

And, yes, it was also Brownback who was so outraged at the split-second
glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl, that he
introduced the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which substantially raised
fines for such simple on-air displays of nudity.

Finally, in addition to being brought into Catholicism by the likes of Opus
Dei and using laundered research by an affiliated group on the Senate floor,
Brownback chairs a meeting every Tuesday night with the "Values Action
Team," consisting of religious leaders like Dobson who help the senator
formulate his thoughts on public policy issues.

According to
<http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1184078,00.html> Time
magazine, Opus Dei has assets in the neighborhood of $2.8 billion and, with
John McCain unlikely to significantly rouse the Religious Right in 2008,
look for Brownback to be the guy that Opus Dei, Focus on the Family and the
Family Research Council turn to as their presidential candidate.

And make no mistake about it: Brownback wants to run. So if you think his
views for a new America, as viewed from the Senate floor, are scary, think
of what he'll be like sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In his mind, it may already be ordained. 

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